Plant Based: Progress Not Perfection By Adam Stansbury

Adam Stansbury offers his thoughts on why going plant based is about progression and not trying to be perfect.

‘We live in a society that likes to class things as black or white, right or wrong, good or bad, all or nothing, and we seem to have trouble grasping the concept that sometimes it’s better to do just a little rather than nothing at all. Maybe we do this because it makes our lives easier when it comes to classifying situations, people, objects, opportunities and lifestyle choices.

Adam Stansbury

The Plant Based Vegan community is much the same; if you speak to many “new age” vegans they’ll most likely shy away from the label due to the negative connotations that it has attracted, and favour the current trendy, inoffensive term of “plant based”.

I actually called myself The Plant Powered PT rather than The Vegan PT for a couple of reasons; firstly, to avoid scaring off potential clients who might land on the scale anywhere from “occasional meat eater” to “ready to go all in”, who might think that I would bring hell fire and damnation down on them if they even looked at a free-range egg or looked longingly at a ball of mozzarella. Secondly, I wanted to make this a more inclusive way of living with less judgment, offering those who wanted to know more but didn’t know where to start, a safe place to enquire, without judgement.

After all, I was a huge meat eater 3 years ago; steak for breakfast, chicken throughout the day, whey protein shakes in between and probably fish for dinner with some kind of dairy dessert, so who am I to judge where people are with their ethical and moral standpoint on consuming animal products. We must never forget where we have come from as it helps us to understand and educate others more effectively.

I’m very proud to be part of this plant powered, plant based, vegan movement, because I believe it’s the easiest way we can all bring about huge amounts of positive change to the world we live in. We can reduce suffering and trauma whilst improving our individual health and the environment in the process. By adopting these plant based eating habits and using the 1,000 plus meal choices we make each year, we can all really make a difference.

So it is not in my interest to alienate people who maybe thinking of going just meat free on Monday’s or vegan from Monday to Friday, as it is always going to be better for someone to eat less meat 2 days a week rather than not bothering at all.

In reality once you start this journey and experience the benefits of a diverse plant based diet, you naturally want to keep experiencing more of the benefits as it resonates more deeply with you, so you try it a little bit more, maybe an extra day, maybe a whole week, maybe even a month.

My more inclusive and flexible approach may upset some of the more hardcore vegans out there but I’m not bothered, I actually don’t care what they think, they are already vegan, they have already made the positive change to their life which I applaud, and so they are not the people I am trying to reach out to and help.’

None of us are perfect, even vegans. We all die eventually, even vegans, but we can all support each other in progressing towards a better more inclusive world and with less judgement by focussing on progress not perfection.